by Rayne, Sarah
The suggestion that he might work shorter hours came after a year. Not retirement of course, said his boss reassuringly, at least, not yet. Caley was still a relatively young man—early forties, wasn’t it? But perhaps it would be easier for him to work less hours, and they could see how things went. Of course, once he reached fifty, if the council’s medical officer agreed, early retirement with a small pension might be possible.
‘Could I think about it, please?’ asked Caley.
He pretended to think for a week, and then accepted the reduced hours, along with the reduced salary. It meant he would have to be careful with money for the next few years, but the new arrangement would allow more time to pursue his quest.
But the visits still had to be made with extreme care. Caley knew you could come to know people by sight, not necessarily speaking to them, but recognizing their faces in the street or on buses or the Tube. At first he tried to vary his appearance when he made the journey, which was not very easy because he did not have many clothes, but he tried wearing a scarf or a pair of spectacles, or even carrying a parcel. He thought no one gave him so much as a second glance.
But the resonances from Prospero Garrick’s book were still with him, and it was this that gave him his real idea.
‘He creeps through the darkness, still clothed in the long overcoat and muffler he always wore in life…a wide-brimmed hat pulled well down to hide his face.’ That was what Prospero had written, and although it was most likely an extravagant description of some perfectly ordinary local character coupled with Prospero’s own taste for the melodramatic, remembering the words the spark of an idea flared deep in Caley’s mind. He found his notes from Prospero’s book; in the closing chapter which Prospero had called ‘Curtain Call’, there was another reference to the Tarleton ghost. Reading it again, the words seemed to leap off the page and seize him by the throat.
‘In summary,’ wrote Prospero, ‘since all theatres have seen comedies and tragedies, loves and deaths and murders, to my mind it is little wonder that they all also have their ghosts. They are the shades of the player kings and queens, the phantoms of pantomime, the wraiths of melodrama. They are the torch-bearers who hand down the traditions and the memories, from the early mummers, through the rowdy Elizabethans and the mannered Restoration players, down through the flamboyant Victorians rewriting the Bard to suit their own purposes… All the way down to the present time.’
It was so flowery that at the time Caley had very nearly skipped the whole section. But he had diligently written it all down, and now he was glad, because towards the end was that other mention.
‘Even the dear old Tarleton’s ghost,’ wrote Prospero, ‘that curious figure that seems to date from the start of the Great War and hid its face as it crept along Platt’s Alley—even that was believed by some to hail from an older era. It had been seen before, say those greybeards whose memories are long and whose discourse is vivid and even loquacious, and who is to say they may not be right? Perhaps the Tarleton’s ghost is a twice-born ghost. Who can tell? Not I.’
Caley closed the notebook thoughtfully. The impression was that Prospero had talked to one or two very elderly people who had contributed vagrant glimpses of their own pasts—although that might be as much due to a liberal hand with a whisky bottle as to a reliable memory. Originally Caley had not been very convinced about those earlier reports of the ghost, but rereading them now, it occurred to him that if the Tarleton’s ghost had been seen twice, it might be seen a third time. It might, in short, cover Caley’s own visits to the theatre.
The figure seemed to have been best known in 1914. How well known had the story been in those years? And how long-lived a tale had it been? There would not be anyone alive now who would have actually seen that figure prowling those fog-bound streets, but memories in this part of London went back a long way and 1914 was just about touchable at one or two removes, so that older people might have heard the stories. A person of seventy or seventy-five might remember parents talking about the mysterious figure. Someone of Caley’s age might remember grandparents doing so.
To use the legend might draw attention to himself, which was exactly what he was trying to avoid. But even while he recognized the danger, he knew he was going to do it anyway: the prospect of identifying with the Tarleton’s past in this way strongly attracted him. And he did not think there was much of a risk: if people saw a muffled figure walking into Platt’s Alley most of them would not take any notice—you saw all kinds of oddly dressed figures nowadays and people were too busy to care anyway. One or two gullible souls might say, half-jokingly, half-nervously, that the Tarleton’s ghost had been seen again, but they would be met with guffaws or jibes about one too many in the pub last night.
In his time away from the office he scoured musty-smelling secondhand clothes shops and theatrical costumiers, to find a long dark overcoat and the right kind of old-fashioned deep-brimmed hat, eventually tracking down both garments in a street market. They were exactly what he wanted—to the casual eye he looked like one of those old Viennese professors you saw in 1930s films. At worst he looked eccentric but not over the top. Most important of all, he did not look in the least like the Caley Merrick most people knew.
Putting the things on for the first time was an extraordinary experience. Whoever he had been, that dark-clad figure—whether he had been a real person or a ghost or simply a figment of somebody’s imagination—wearing these things brought him and the past abruptly closer. I’m donning a mantle, he thought. I’m taking on the cloak of some long-ago actor or performer who perhaps died here, or did something here that left a strong imprint. A musician, perhaps? This last idea sent delight through him.
He liked to go along to the theatre in the early evenings. It pleased him to think he was walking along Burbage Street at the same hour as the Tarleton’s audiences had done on their way to the theatre. He imagined them walking alongside him and hearing them discuss the evening ahead, saying, ‘Toby Chance is performing a new song tonight,’ or, ‘Bunstable’s on the bill this evening.’ Perhaps arguing about whether they would have supper in the Oyster Bar or go along to the Sailor’s Retreat for mutton and ale pie and a bottle of stout.
And once inside the theatre, the new trendiness of Bankside—in fact most of the twentieth and all of the twenty-first century—melted away. Caley loved that, and he loved the feeling that the ghosts welcomed him. He would never be able to speak of this to anyone, of course: no one could possibly understand how the ghosts liked to hear the old songs played and even quietly sung, or how Caley himself liked to play and sing them. He had scoured secondhand book shops in the area and had found several bundles of old sheet music, some of which were written by Toby Chance—Chance & Douglas it always said on the covers. Caley set himself to learn them—Mary had said all those years ago that he would surely have lost what she called the knack of playing the piano, but he had not. At first he had been unsure and hesitant, but he had persisted and gradually the old skill had returned. Not completely; his fingers were no longer as supple as they had been at ten and eleven years of age, but he was competent enough. He embarked cautiously on the music taught him all those years ago: simple versions of Chopin and Czerny nocturnes, old folk songs, and ballads.
But it was when he played the music and the songs from the early 1900s that the whole theatre seemed to come alight and alive, and the feeling of being at home, of belonging, was strong and sweet. Ghost song, that old doorman had called it. Caley liked this; he liked humming the ghost songs to himself as he went through the beloved rooms.
On his fiftieth birthday the retirement and the modest pension were finally arranged and, as he walked quietly away from his desk for the last time, he was conscious of an immense uplifting of his spirit. He would have to be very prudent and careful with his tiny income but he would have enough.
He never regretted the small deception he had practised on Shona Seymour all those years ago—the deception that had resulted in his co
pying the key.
Even when he had embarked on a new stage of his plan—that of becoming one of the Harlequin’s casual workers—he had felt perfectly safe about meeting her again. It was unlikely in the extreme that she would recognize him: a workman seen all those years ago for about five minutes would not have made any real impression, and he knew he had changed a good deal since then. What was left of his hair was grey, and he had had to have most of his teeth removed six years earlier: the dentures he now wore had drastically changed the shape of his mouth. As for Miss Seymour herself, Caley thought her little changed, although the years seemed to have hardened her—given her several coats of enamel. He had wondered if she had someone in her life, and thought he would be very sorry for any man who became seriously entangled with her.
The possession of the Tarleton key had been—and still was—the most marvellous and precious thing in his life. He never walked along Platt’s Alley without a lifting of his spirits and the feeling that the ghosts would be waiting for him, invisible but unquestionably near, waiting to hear the music he would play, waiting to see if he would wander into the stage box as he sometimes liked to do, humming one of the songs they knew.
When it rained heavily the alley was often semi-flooded and the long overcoat, so carefully searched for in the street markets, trailed in the puddles so that the hem became wet and bedraggled. For a few hours, while it was drying, it smelt of rain and age, but afterwards it smelt of the Tarleton itself. Over the years the other things in his wardrobe came to smell of it, as if the theatre wanted to find its way into every corner and every fibre of Caley’s life. Wherever you are, I’m there with you, it seemed to be saying.
After rainstorms the stage door was sometimes slightly swollen from the moisture and was difficult to open. This always caused a surge of panic. What if some officious busybody decided to fit a new lock or even a new door one day? But it had never happened and no one ever looked twice at the muffled figure walking quickly to the entrance to Platt’s Alley.
And then had come the night when he stood in the stage box and watched Hilary Bryant and the unknown man levering up part of the stage. This had alarmed Caley, because it looked very much as if a detailed inspection was being made of the Tarleton—perhaps by a surveyor or builder. Hilary and the man hammered and crashed about on the stage, but Caley did not dare go too near the front of the box to see exactly what they were doing. At one point Hilary seemed aware of his presence, because she looked up at the stage box and said something, and the man shone the torch straight onto it. But neither of them could have seen Caley who stepped back at once and became hidden by the deep darkness within, and once warned it was easy to stay well out of sight and hearing. The Tarleton was full of nooks and crannies and hidey-holes and by this time he knew them all.
In the end they left the auditorium and went out through the stage door: there was the unmistakable sound of the old door opening and closing and Caley waited a few minutes to let them get clear. In case they might be lingering outside, he went out by the main street door. He did not have a key to that door, but it was one of the one-way exits that opened from inside, so all he had to do was lift and push on the bar that released the lock and slip out into the street, pulling the door firmly so the mechanism clicked back.
He walked home, a thin dark-clad figure, weaving its way through the crowded streets as quietly and as insubstantially as a forgotten ghost. It was raining hard which meant people had their heads down and their faces shielded with umbrellas and no one noticed him.
His mind was in turmoil. He had come to know the pattern of the Tarleton’s year very well indeed. He knew about the twice-yearly cleaning sessions and he knew Whistle Clean had been replaced by Happy Mops a while back, and also that there were annual fire regulation and electrical wiring checks and an inspection made for the insurance of the whole structure. None of that explained what Hilary Bryant and the man had been doing there this evening.
He lay awake for most of the night, reviewing everything he knew about the beloved building. Over the years, listening to people talk, reading everything that could be read, painstakingly piecing together fragments and shreds of information, one of the things he had learned was that there was something called a ‘restraint’ on the theatre: a very definite restriction—maybe even a legal one—that had held it in its dark silence all this long time. He had tried to find out more about this restraint, and he had hoped his recent association with the Harlequin might provide more information: he had imagined he would be able to find and read the file on the building itself, without anyone knowing. There would surely be such a file somewhere. But no matter how many files there might be on the old place, Caley had early on discovered that the main files were kept in Miss Seymour’s office, which was always locked if she was not there.
But if you were going to open up an old theatre, one of the first things you might do would be to call in an architect or a builder to see what needed doing to the structure—specifically to see what needed doing to the stage.
Around five a grey light filtered through the bedroom curtains, and he heard the clatter of the milkman in the street below. He got up and as he washed and dressed he faced the possibility that the odd restraint might be nearing its end. The knowledge brought a twisting fear, knotting his stomach with cramp, then moving upwards to his chest. It was a more severe attack than usual, but he groped for the nebulizer and inhaled for several minutes. After his breathing became easier, he made a pot of tea which he drank gratefully, then poured cereal into a bowl, trying to pretend nothing was wrong.
But everything might be wrong, Caley was already aware of that. If the restraint ended people would come storming into the Tarleton. They would fling open doors and windows so light came pouring in. They would tramp through the wonderful rooms and tear down walls or take up floors and rip out ceilings, planning how they would put on shows and plays again, never once giving a thought to the ghosts. And the ghosts would hate it! Caley knew that. The ghosts would shy away from the too bright light, and they would not understand the harsh modern music. And how would Caley himself bear it, knowing he could no longer come and go whenever he wanted? Knowing he could never sit in the green room with his hands on the long-familiar keys of the piano that might even have belonged to Toby Chance, pouring out the music that had become so much a part of him?
He looked rather despairingly round the little house; all those years ago Mary had said there was no room for a piano, and she had been right. In any case, Caley did not want to play his music here; he wanted to play it in the place where it belonged.
If the Tarleton really were to reopen, it would be the worst thing that had ever happened to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AT FIRST HILARY ENJOYED the journey to Fosse Leigh. Shona was an efficient driver, the car was comfortable and they had their work for the Harlequin Society in common: specifically, they had the Tarleton’s future to talk about. Hilary had spent the evening in her flat and some of the morning, developing ideas for a really stunning reopening campaign. While she worked, she had tried not to look at the phone too often, or to will it to ring and for it to be Robert. It was silly to be disappointed that he had not phoned, because his foraging into the theatre’s nether regions could have taken longer than he had expected. And when he got home (wherever his home was), it might have been so late he had not wanted to disturb her.
At the start of the journey she talked a bit about her preliminary ideas for the reopening, but she had the impression that Shona was not really listening. Probably she wanted to concentrate on driving: even when they were clear of the M25 and onto the M3 the traffic was heavy and they met a couple of hold-ups.
They turned off the motorway near Farnborough and had lunch at a prosperous-looking hotel, Shona remarking that since they were on Harlequin expenses, they might as well eat in civilized surroundings. Over the meal she seemed to relax a bit, but when they went into the hotel’s plush washroom, Hilary thought
she looked pale, although perhaps that was just the light which was rather self-consciously shaded.
But back in the car, Shona still looked pale and her eyes had an odd, unfocussed look. It was to be hoped she was all right to drive the rest of the way to Fosse Leigh and then back again tomorrow morning; Hilary could drive, but she did not actually own a car, mostly because cars in London were apt to be more of a liability than an asset. She was not very used to driving on motorways and Shona’s car was a gleaming and patrician make, so the thought of giving it even the tiniest scrape was daunting. But perhaps it was just the fading light that made Shona look like that; even midway through the afternoon it was dark at this time of year.
If Robert phoned the Harlequin today he would get Hilary’s voicemail. This was perfectly all right because she had recorded a new message on her office phone and also on her home phone, giving her mobile number. She had checked the mobile just before leaving London; Robert had not phoned, although Gil had. Hilary was by this time so deeply inside the world of the Tarleton, to say nothing of hoping for a call from Robert, that it had taken her a moment to think who Gil was. Oh yes, of course. Rather dreary evenings at the dismal restaurants Gil favoured and listening to earnest explanations about his health. Gil’s message was fairly typical: something about sorry not to have been in touch, but the damp weather was affecting his sinuses. Hilary didn’t phone back because she couldn’t cope with Gil or his sinuses today.
She would switch her mobile off while they were at Levels House, but she would check discreetly for messages at intervals. At this point she had a mad image of herself sneaking off to the loo every quarter of an hour just to see if Robert had phoned, and this struck her as so exactly like the behaviour of a love-sick fourteen year old that she put Robert firmly from her mind and told Shona they only had about ten miles to go before they had to look for the Glastonbury signs.